Editing Moshe Dayan (section)

===1967 Six-Day War===
[[File:Dan Hadani collection (990044326670205171).jpg|thumb|Moshe Dayan in [[South Vietnam]], 1967]]
Moshe Dayan was covering the [[Vietnam War]] to observe modern warfare up close after he left political life. Moreover, he was on patrol as an observer with members of the [[United States Marine Corps|US Marine Corps]]. Although Dayan did not take part in most of the planning before the [[Six-Day War]] of June 1967, he personally oversaw the capture of East Jerusalem during the 5–7 June fighting.<ref>{{cite video
 | year =1960
 | title =Video: Cease-Fire. Uneasy Truce In Mid-East, 1967/06/13 (1967)
 | url =https://archive.org/details/1967-06-13_Cease-Fire
 | publisher =[[Universal Newsreel]]
 | access-date =22 February 2012
}}</ref> During the years following the war, Dayan enjoyed enormous popularity in Israel and was widely viewed as a potential Prime Minister. At this time, Dayan was the leader of the hawkish camp within the Labor government, opposing a return to anything like Israel's pre-1967 borders. He once said that he preferred [[Sharm-al-Sheikh]] (an Egyptian town on the southern edge of the [[Sinai Peninsula]] overlooking Israel's shipping lane to the [[Red Sea]] via the [[Gulf of Aqaba]]) without peace, to peace without Sharm-al-Sheikh. He modified these views later in his career and played an important role in the eventual peace agreement between Israel and [[Egypt]].

Dayan's contention was denied by Muky Tsur, a longtime leader of the United Kibbutz Movement who said "For sure there were discussions about going up the Golan Heights or not going up the Golan Heights, but the discussions were about security for the kibbutzim in Galilee," he said. "I think that Dayan himself didn't want to go to the Golan Heights. This is something we've known for many years. But no kibbutz got any land from conquering the Golan Heights. People who went there went on their own. It's cynicism to say the kibbutzim wanted land."<ref>{{cite news| url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/051197golan-dayan.html | work=The New York Times | title=General's Words Shed a New Light on the Golan | date=12 January 2000}}</ref>

About Dayan's comments, Israeli ambassador to the United States [[Michael Oren]] has said<ref>[https://www.jpost.com/israel/q-and-a-with-michael-oren 5 Jun. 2007] Q&A with [[Michael Oren]]</ref>
<blockquote>There is an element of truth to Dayan's claim, but it is important to note that Israel regarded the de-militarized zones in the north as part of their sovereign territory and reserved the right to cultivate them—a right that the Syrians consistently resisted with force. Syria also worked to benefit from the Jordan river before it flowed into Israel, aiming to get use of it as a water source; Syria also actively supported Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel. Israel occasionally exploited incidents in the de-militarized zones to strike at the Syrian water diversion project and to punish the Syrians for their support of terror. Dayan's remarks must also be taken in context of the fact that he was a member of the opposition at the time. His attitude toward the Syrians changed dramatically once he became defense minister. Indeed, on June 8, 1967, Dayan bypassed both the Prime Minister and the Chief of the General Staff in ordering the Israeli army to attack and capture the Golan.</blockquote>

====USS ''Liberty'' incident====
During the [[Six-Day War]], [[Israeli Defense Forces|Israeli aerial and naval forces]] [[USS Liberty incident|attacked the USS ''Liberty'' spy ship]] as she was on patrol in international waters in the eastern [[Mediterranean Sea]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/israel-attacks-uss-liberty | title=Israel attacks USS ''Liberty'' | date=9 February 2010 }}</ref> 34 Americans were killed and 174 were wounded in the attack. Israel's official explanation was that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity,” but this remains disputed.

Many ''Liberty'' survivors and their supporters maintain that Dayan personally ordered the attack, and this is supported by a [[CIA]] report on the attack.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72cI13uPqGMC | title=The Attack on the ''Liberty'': The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship | isbn=9781439166055 | last1=Scott | first1=James | date=2 June 2009 | publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://stationhypo.com/2021/08/08/uss-liberty-lawsuit-reveals-us-govt-withholding-hundreds-of-pages-about-deadly-1967-israeli-attack-guest-post/ | title=USS Liberty Lawsuit Reveals US Gov't. Withholding Hundreds of Pages about Deadly 1967 Israeli Attack (Guest Post) | work=Station HYPO | date=8 August 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d516 | title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967 – Office of the Historian }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/june/commentary-remember-liberty|title=Commentary – Remember the Liberty &#124; Proceedings – June 2017 Vol. 143/6/1,372|date=June 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.wrmea.org/2005-august/washingtons-fateful-cover-up-of-israels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty.html | title=Washington's Fateful Cover-Up of Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty | date=27 August 2005 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/uss-liberty-cia-report-dayan-personally-ordered-the-attack-39469/ | title=USS Liberty: CIA Report "Dayan Personally Ordered the Attack" | date=July 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20140604-remember-the-uss-liberty-the-us-and-israel-wish-you-didn-t/ | title=Remember the USS Liberty? The US and Israel wish you didn't | date=4 June 2014 }}</ref>

One of the prevailing theories for the motivation for the attack is that the Israelis wished to keep secret their pending invasion of the [[Golan Heights]], and they feared that the [[signals intelligence]] collection ship might have collected intelligence about the pending invasion.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WGQSAAAAYAAJ | title=Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship | isbn=9780394505121 | last1=Ennes | first1=James M. | date= 1979 | publisher=Random House }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/israels-assault-on-the-uss-liberty/ | title=Israel's Assault on the USS Liberty }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.fauquier.com/news/fauquier-man-seeks-truth-of-attack-on-uss-liberty-50-years-ago/article_0b2f85f8-34d4-11e7-8a4c-3be94cbba260.html | title=Fauquier man seeks truth of attack on USS ''Liberty'' 50 years ago | date=10 May 2017 }}</ref><ref>https://www.usslibertyveterans.org/files/documentcenter/USS%20Liberty%20Document%20Center/usslibertydocumentcenter.org/doc/upload/MOSHE%20DAYAN%20AND%20THE%20ATTACK%20ON%20THE%20UNITED%20STATES%20SHIP5.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=August 2024}}</ref>